There is nothing particularly wrong with the basic precepts of capitalism. There is nothing about the principles of private ownership and pursuit of profit that conflicts with Islam. But there have to be controls and regulations to ensure that this does not work against the general welfare of the society. Accumulation of wealth must come with increased responsibility to use that wealth in a positive way; and it cannot be allowed to be derived through exploitation and deprivation.
There needs to be Democratic Capitalism. The producers of wealth should have a share in it, that is just a rational, logical right. If you pay me $100 for my labor, and my labor earns you $10,000, this is fundamentally unfair. If workers are paid an unlivable wage to manufacture products that cost only about $10 but are sold in the market for $150, so that executives can make $100,000 salaries; that is fundamentally unfair; and it is ultimately undemocratic.
I do not say that there should be no private ownership; that there should be state ownership etc; but it makes sense to me that ownership of a company should belong to the workers who are the most important element in any business, and who create its wealth. This is more logical from a business standpoint. If workers share the ownership, and share the profits, they will automatically be more productive and committed to the company’s success. It seems to me that this should be a requirement in the laws of incorporation.
Why would a company grant decision-making powers to shareholders who have no role in the company, who do not care about the workers or the social impact of business operations; but deny workers any say? Why should workers have no ownership of the wealth they produce for a company? Why should the market price of a company’s goods and services be inflated several times higher than the cost of production, only to pad the incomes of those at the top of the corporate structure? There should be a limit imposed on executive salaries, restricting them from exceeding 12 times the wages of the lowest paid workers. And there should be a similar limit imposed on pricing, so that goods cannot be sold at prices exorbitantly higher than their actual cost